


A time before record, and a time before remembering

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: The Birthday of the World and Other Stories - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Storytelling, myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 19:20:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: A commentary on the Seventh Discussion, told to my otherchild Efres at the time of the storms and the high tide.





	A time before record, and a time before remembering

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/AlexSeanchai) in the [Sedoretu_Fic_Fest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Sedoretu_Fic_Fest) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> (By "Original Work" I mean "any fandom you've a mind to employ, and original work would be cool too".) So as Le Guin originally conceived sedoretu (see Fanlore's how-it-works Le Guin quote), the moieties are named Morning and Evening for "ancient religious reasons". What reasons? Alternately: the actual reasons have been lost to history, so what do modern scholars and modern reconstructionists of that ancient religion *think* the reasons are?

Evening looks forward to Night; and Evening looks backwards at Day.

Morning looks backwards to Night; and Morning looks forward to Day.

So it is, and so it has always been.

Morning stretches out a hand to Evening; and, where their hands meet, there is Day.

And Morning turns, and stretches out a hand go Evening; and where the hands meet, there is Night.

So it is, and so it has always been. And, oh, dear child, you ask me to tell you how things were before that?

In these times children are born at the noon day, and at midnight; at daybreak and twilight and at the hour of the deepest darkness. And indeed, so it has been for these years, and for years upon years.

But the first children were born when the light met the darkness, and the darkness met the light. And so half the children of O were born out of darkness into darkness, and half were born out of darkness into light.

I received my inheritance from my mother, and you from yours, and so for each of us. And it's true, your mother's mother was born at the noonday, and still she belonged to the Evening, and so do you, who were born at the coming of the light. And it's true, my mother's mother was born as darkness fell, and still she belonged to the Morning, and so do I, and indeed I, like you, was born at the coming of the light. And you could count back a hundred generations, a thousand generations, and you would find that the times do not match the moieties. But there was a time before record and a time before remembering.

The tide rises, and the tide falls. In the old, old days, this, too, happened at the coming of the light and the coming of the darkness. But the stars slipped, slowly, slowly, and now the cycle of the tide slides around and around; and if the high tide is at midday today, then in ten days' time it will be at sunset.

But our ancestors were charged to remember: to remember that once darkness was darkness and light was light, and that it was the spaces between them that were where things happened. And, because we are good at forgetting, they took the times and the names and the light and the darkness into their very beings.

How? My dear, the only way they could. With a story.

Oh, but nobody remembers it now. It's so, so old that it's been forgotten and rewritten, and forgotten and rewritten, over and over again, and now hardly anybody remembers that there was even a story.

Well, perhaps it went like this:

Two came from the burning desert, and two came from the frozen mountain, and, when they met, heat was cooled, and ice was melted, and pure clear water ran out from that place, in two great rivers that flowed across the length and breadth of the land, and met again at the sea.

What are they called? I suppose they were called Morning and Evening. I don't know. They dried up many, many centuries ago, and no one now knows where they flowed.

Well, then, perhaps it went like this:

Long, long ago, our world began with a darkness that was so deep that it was dazzling, and a light that was so bright that none could see. Land was ripped away from water, and day from night. And that was when our people first came into being.

The sister and the brother who were born of the land knew that something was missing; and the brother and sister who were born of the sea felt that same lack. And so the sister and brother who were born of the land resolved to go to the edge of the sea, and the brother and sister who were born of the sea resolved to go to the edge of the land. But the world being young, and unsteady, it was fraught with dangers, they feared to go in pairs, lest both run into danger and lest both be destroyed together.

And so they set out, each of those pairs, each of those sisters, each of those brothers, they set out in opposite directions, facing away from each other, and walking forwards.

There is a place where the land meets the sea, and it was in this place, as the sun was rising, that the daughter of the sea met the son of the land. And there is a place where the sea meets the land, and it was in this place, as the sun was setting, that the son of the sea met the daughter of the land.

And when each saw the other, they knew that here was the element that had been lacking. But they knew, too, that they had left behind what was equally precious.

'Let us go,' said the daughter of the sea to the son of the land, 'let us find your sister and my brother.' For there is a time when the sea rises and pulls, keen to escape its bounds and claim what it may.

'Let us wait,' said the son of the sea to the daughter of the land, 'let us see what comes to us.' For there is a time when the sea is calm and the sun shines bright upon it.

So it was that two travelled, and two waited, and under the momentum of those walking feet, and braced by the counterweight of those who sat still, the world began to turn. And the world turned, and the daughter of the sea and the son of the land walked, and they walked, and when they came to the place where the sea meets the land, they found the daughter of the land and the son of the sea, and they knew at last that they were complete.

And, having been set free from fear, they went on together, children of the land and children of the sea, children of the Evening and children of the Morning.

There are very few now who remember what I've told you; and, indeed, I may well have got it wrong.

I have? How did it happen, then?

Ah, perhaps you're right, then. Perhaps it was like that.

But there is not a child on all of O who does not know Morning from Evening; and who, deep in their bones, can forget which they belong to. And that is how it should be; for it's not the story that's important. It's what the story tells you.


End file.
